What books are you reading right now?

Woo hoo! I nabbed a copy of Cormac McCarthy's Child of God. It's a PB with someone's notes & underlining, but for .99 I'm not complaining.

I've slowly been collecting everything McCarthy had published and I'm about 75% there. His early books were published in really low numbers, making HB 1st editions very difficult to find and very expensive. They've been republished in PB, but even used PB copies aren't that common or cheap.

 

I finished Cormac McCarthy's Child of God.

Here I was thinking that McCarthy's Outer Dark was....extremely dark.

COG makes OD look like a childrens fairytale.

 

OMG OMG OMG OMG OMG OMG!!!

I just realized that I took my final this morning and have all summer to read things other than textbooks and research publications. I don't know what to read. Holy Christ. I am in choice overload thinking about all the possibilities.

Squeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeee!

 

I had the chance to read through parts of Grey, the add-on to the Fifty Shades Trilogy by E.L. James. I don't blame James for cranking out another book, she might as well extend her ride on the wave of popularity as long as possible. Unfortunately her writing skills have not improved.

I also read parts of Bared To You by Sylvia Day. Day's writing is marginally better than James', but Day does turn up the heat somewhat: She realizes that characters actually having sex frequently rather than spending too much time talking about the possibility of having sex is a key part in a novel about.......sex.

Enjoy your absolutely-no-academic-material-allowed reading orgy!

 

Your Favorite Band Is Killing Me: What Pop Music Rivalries Reveal About the Meaning of Life by Steven Hyden — Reviews, Discussion, Bookclubs, Lists

I like Steven Hayden's music essays on music and this is one long one disguised as famous music rivalries.
Most of them are more the way bans has effected each other and fans have pushed against the result.

 

I actually am reading loving sex, the joy of love and passion. by dr laura berman. I ordered it off of barnes and noble. it came in the mail yesterday. I read the forward last night lol

 

I just got a copy of Andy Weir's The Martian, and it's terrific. (I haven't seen the movie yet, though.) It alternates between hilarious, heart-wrenching and spine-chilling.

Even though I know what happens in the end, the writing is powerful enough to make me constantly forget that when I'm in the moment.

I can't put this thing down. If y'all excuse me for now...

 

The Martian is a really good read.

But...

As the book goes on the accumulation of extremely close calls and everything-has-to-be-timed-just-perfectly situations got to me.

 

The Cure by Geeta Anand. Parents fight to find a treatment for Pompe disease. This book inspired the movie Extraordinary Measures, which I haven't seen. I'm only about 50 pages into it so for now I'll hold off on any likes & dislikes.

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Nothing But The Blues by Lawrence Cohn. I like how Cohn discusses many obscure (to me) blues musicians. I'm not thrilled when he goes into detailed analysis of the music using musical terms that a layperson won't understand. On that note (ha, ha, ha) a companion CD set would've been great (I haven't checked to see if there is one). I got this $45.00 list price book for around $2.10 .

 

Finding Flow - Mihaly Czichsentmihali
You Alone are Real to Me - Lou Andreas Salome
Resistance, Rebellion, and Death - Albert Camus

 

the rise of nine

 

Love the Cryptonomicon, it's a tough go at times but well worth it.

 

The Great Deluge by Douglas Brinkley, published in 2006, about a year after Hurricane Katrina. When I finish it I'm going to look for some books about what has happened over the last 10 years in the way of disaster preparation & prevention.

 

Just finished "War Brides" by Helen Bryan, a very engaging read, part mystery, part romance.. Really good book.

 

Re-reading the Sword of Shannara trilogy for the first time in probably 25 years. I hadn't cared much for it back then-- I was a deadly purist with fantasy and sci fi at that point (still a bit of a purist with some things, but age has mellowed me, I suppose), and I felt like the writing was too forced, the story just a melange of rip-offs from Tolkien and other greats.

I am enjoying it much more this time-- and fortunately, I recall little of the actual plot, so it feels almost like reading it for the first time. While it certainly isn't at the level of Tolkien, or even Robert Jordan, it really isn't bad at all-- maybe not A-level fantasy, but a good solid B-level; and at this point in my life, I am not necessarily focused on finding new literary masterpieces so much as pleasant diversion.

 

I just downloaded Rhapsody in Schmaltz: Yiddish Food and Why We Cant Stop Eating It.

A lighthearted look at the "history and social impact of the cuisine that Yiddish-speaking Jews from Central and Eastern Europe brought to the U.S. and that their American descendants developed and refined. The book looks at how and where these dishes came to be, how they varied from region to region, the role they played in Jewish culture in Europe and the role that they play in Jewish and more general American culture and foodways today."